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Hardware Intel Issues Fix for X25-M G2 SSD Firmware
Brandon Hill (Blog) - December 2, 2009 8:00 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 36 comment(s) - last by somedude1234.. on Dec 4 at 9:48 AM
Intel once again attempts to correct SSD corruption issues

In late October, DailyTech reported that Intel was once again having firmware issues with its speedy MLC-based SSDs. In the latest case, the new firmware not only boosted write speeds by 40 percent for the 160GB X25-M G2, but it also added TRIM support in Windows 7.

However, shortly after the firmware was released, numerous users reported being unable to boot into Windows 7 after performing the update. Intel reacted quickly and pulled not only the firmware update, but also the TRIM utility for Windows.

Intel is now ready to try again with a new firmware update for the G2 series SSDs. The new 02HD firmware comes bundled with a new firmware update tool (v1.5). The firmware update applies to both 80GB and 160GB X25-M G2 SSDs.

Intel's X25-M G2s have been proven time and time again to be among the fastest SSDs on the market. The one Achilles' heel for the drive has been its relatively low write speeds compared to its Indilinix-based competition. This deficit is present even with the 40 percent boost from the TRIM firmware.

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I love my G2
By somedude1234 on 12/2/2009 8:51:11 AM , Rating: 2
I ordered the 80 GB G2 the same week it came out (after reading the 1st article on Anandtech). I absolutely love this drive.

Thankfully, I've been too lazy to update the drive firmware from the original (with the boot password bug). I'm still using XP so TRIM support isn't all that useful to me yet.

I've experienced no issues whatsoever. The drive does "feel" a bit slower than it was when I initially installed it, but my laptop is still light years faster than it was with my old 7.2K HDD.

I'll never build a system again that doesn't have an SSD for the OS. With Kingston now an Intel OEM for the smaller capacity G2's, price is even less of a factor to consider.




RE: I love my G2
By Robear on 12/2/2009 9:19:36 AM , Rating: 2
I'm with you. I got mine and put it in my PC the week (day?) it was released, just before Intel pulled them for the boot password bug.

I'm happy to see Intel has this update released; I may actually consider going to Windows 7 now, though I think I'll let this update go through the public grinder first.


RE: I love my G2
By djc208 on 12/2/2009 9:52:59 AM , Rating: 2
I bought one two weeks ago and installed it and W7 and have no complaints (I'd have gone for the 160GB, but prices on the 80GB are not nearly as inflated).

I'm with you on the firmware update though, I downloaded it but I'm wondering if I might want to wait a week or two just to make sure.

Once I update and get TRIM support will W7 automatically start using it or will I have to do something to get it to work?


RE: I love my G2
By fleshconsumed on 12/2/2009 10:14:17 AM , Rating: 2
As long as you have Microsoft storage drivers you don't have to do anything. Intel ones still do not support TRIM so do not use them. The only thing you might want to do is run trim tool manually once.


RE: I love my G2
By blowfish on 12/2/2009 11:07:52 AM , Rating: 2
So many people seem to miss the point with SSD's. While they are so (relatively) expensive, the best or maybe most cost-effective way to use them is as you do, for the OS and programs, and use a regular HDD for data. Doing that, even a 32GB SSD is plenty, even for Vista. You do need a laptop that has provision for two drives, though, which I suspect is a problem especially with older laptops.

I'm hoping that Kingston will cater to the "dual drive" market with small, fast "boot drive" SSD's


RE: I love my G2
By Reclaimer77 on 12/2/2009 12:19:11 PM , Rating: 4
I agree with your post, except your size comment. 32g would barely fit Windows and World of Warcraft or a similar large game.


RE: I love my G2
By steven975 on 12/2/2009 12:58:03 PM , Rating: 2
exactly. My win7 install (no programs on C drive) is 40-46GB with XP VM installed (depending on lots of factors). Granted ~15GB of that is the pagefile.sys and hibernation file.

32GB isn't enough for anything. 60GB is really a minimum.


RE: I love my G2
By The0ne on 12/2/2009 1:47:53 PM , Rating: 1
Urgh...

Firstly DON'T put your VM images on the OS drive. Secondly move your pagefile to another drive as well. I wouldn't be surprise to see your performance takings hits from doing this and for how many years?

If you don't have a second HD buy one and do the above. If you're on a laptop without a secondary expansion bay then try using a external HD for your VMs, games, etc.


RE: I love my G2
By MrDiSante on 12/2/2009 9:51:00 PM , Rating: 3
Urgh...

No, that's stupid. Reads and write to and from your page file are usually about 4KB (your page size) and non-sequential. I am pulling this number out of my behind but I imagine that a good quarter of those tiny reads/writes that SSDs excel at are to and from your pagefile.

As for not putting your VM images on your OS drive - I'm pretty sure he's talking about XP compatibility mode. If there is a way to move that VM to another drive, I've yet to find it (not that I've looked much) and if you did then you would run into an even bigger issue than with moving your pagefile of having a ton of tiny writes that normally occur on your physical system drive.

Long story short, wrong on just about about every major point.


RE: I love my G2
By The0ne on 12/2/2009 1:44:27 PM , Rating: 2
WOW is data, put it on your DATA HD as the poster said. Just keep your OS on the SSD. I do that now anyways with just HDs. 32Gig will be enough for OS and any other system files.


RE: I love my G2
By Reclaimer77 on 12/2/2009 1:51:51 PM , Rating: 3
No offense, but that's retarded. As a long time WoW player I cannot tell you enough how having WOW installed on my SSD has improved things. Especially load times in heavily populated areas.

This isn't about WoW. 32gigs is NOT big enough for a modern OS/app drive. Period. And if you have to move apps away from the SSD, where they could benefit the most from an SSD, then honestly what's the point ?


RE: I love my G2
By The0ne on 12/2/2009 2:13:33 PM , Rating: 2
What's more retarded is rebuking what the poster originally stated, that 32Gig is enough for OS and data should be move to a DATA drive. Obviously if you want WoW and any other apps/games on there it's not going to be enough, not even close. But that isn't what the poster said.

The reason behind having your data and/or apps on another drive is to reduce the access time of the HD. Have you done any comparisons of having a regular single SSD with multiple apps running against a 2 drive system where one is reserved for OS? Trust me, if you're like the other guy running a VM, a game or two ( I have 3-4 FFXI instances running, plus WOW when I'd played) plus misc applications it's going to choke up at some point. That is what I would call an experience person like yourself RETARDED.

Now if you just have the OS and WoW then fine but don't be stupid to assume others are running the same things as you are on the main drive. Here's what I usually run...

1. Fedora VM
2. Ubuntu VM
3. XP VM
4. 3-4 instances of FFXI
5. Surfing/downloading/Videos
6. Music playing

Calling others retarded because you failed to comprehend the original post and then failed even more by assuming others run the same setup as you is too much.

If you really want to speed up your WOW gaming as you've claimed build a PC, grab gigabytes of RAM, creative a RAM drive and play it off from there. What sense is there to have HD or even SSD for that matter when memory is quicker. Sarcasm of course.


RE: I love my G2
By Donkey2008 on 12/3/2009 2:24:17 AM , Rating: 2
Boy, you sure told that guy off. There go 5 minutes of your life lost forever.


RE: I love my G2
By erple2 on 12/4/2009 9:27:40 AM , Rating: 2
I'm not so sure you actually read what the original poster said. I seem to recall quite clearly:

quote:
So many people seem to miss the point with SSD's. While they are so (relatively) expensive, the best or maybe most cost-effective way to use them is as you do, the OS and programs, and use a regular HDD for data. Doing that, even a 32GB SSD is plenty


Is WoW not a program? Where do you draw the line between WoW and programs? WoW is a game. I think that a game is an application. I also view an application as a program. In your view of the world, is a game not an application? Or is it that applications are not programs? I'm trying to figure out where you're drawing the line.

I really doubt that you'll be able to have all of those things (other than the music, which IMO is clearly data) installed on a 32 gig SSD.

The blanket statement of "32 gigs is enough for OS and programs" just isn't the case any more. My old computer did have a WoW instance running on it, and 32 gigs would probably have been enough for it.

The problem, then, perhaps is the assumption that a "game" is not a "program". I suppose if you make that distinction, then perhaps you're right. Then 32 gigs might just be enough space for OS and programs, provided those programs don't come with huge map/texture data.


RE: I love my G2
By ralith on 12/2/2009 11:07:41 PM , Rating: 2
I've been curious about how people implement this OS drive / data drive stuff in Windows. When you guys say you have Windows installed on a OS Drive and Data on another drive are you setting up softlinks (NTFS symbolic links) to make it seamless, or are you brute forcing it and just choosing a different drive when you install your programs and data? Or is there some program I am unaware of that makes setting this type of system easy on windows?


RE: I love my G2
By Nomgle on 12/3/2009 8:32:02 AM , Rating: 2
There's no "implementation" required - just install Windows as normal onto the SolidState C: drive, and place your data files onto the Mechanical D: drive. It's as simple as that - you're the user, and you choose what you put where !

The "softlinks" you refer to are actually called Junctions in NTFS. If you want to set them up, then go ahead. If you want to redirect your personal folders, then go ahead. Or don't - it's entirely up to you. You certainly don't need "some program" to operate a dual-drive computer.


RE: I love my G2
By chizow on 12/3/2009 9:53:06 AM , Rating: 2
There's numerous ways to organize different folders on different physical storage drives, as many mentioned already with SSDs you need to manage your storage space accordingly so that the apps/data that benefit most from the SSDs performance is balanced with its limited storage space.

1. User folders. These are the default folders that are mapped and tied to different User logins in Vista/7. You can move the physical location of these folders individually by using Explorer > Right-Click on Folder > Location Tab > Move > Choose destination location. This allows you to physically move large data folders like Downloads, My Music, My Video but still keep them attached to your User profile and linked to all the drop-list/Explorer views.

2. Manual/Custom installation. If this is what you mean by "brute forcing it" then yes you will/should specify where to install certain apps or store downloads/data. Just good practice really, but Vista/7 are actually pretty good and guessing where you want to store stuff by default and adjust accordingly based on your previous selections.

3. Junctions. Incredibly useful with SSDs as another poster mentioned. I use junctions to move games I'm currently playing through to my SSD, make a junction, them move the games back to my main Data storage array afterwards. This saves the hassle of having to mess with registry keys, regsvr entries, uninstalling/reinstalling when physically moving install locations. For example, I have a 2TB RAID 0 Game Array and install my games there by default. So I'd choose custom install and choose D:\<game name>. If I wanted to play that game off my SSD which is also my OS/boot drive, I simply cut/copy the entire game directory to my SSD first, then run an elevated cmd prompt and type:

mklink /j "D:\<game name>" "C:\<game name>"

D: is where I want the shadow/ghost link because that's where the OS/registry think the game is installed but the game is physically located and being accessed from physical location C:, the SSD.

4. Page File . I move this off the SSD for a variety of reasons even though the page file might seem to naturally benefit from the advantages of an SSD, it simply takes up too much space, shouldn't need to be accessed as much with sufficient system RAM and will also significantly contribute to wear and tear on the drive with its constant small writes (which ultimately leads to reduced performance and SSD death).

There's still some data I like to keep on my SSD, like photos, because they're relatively small compared to music/videos/data/games and also benefit tremendously from the faster seek and read times. You'll basically see near-instant thumbnail previews, searching, and scrolling for your pictures which is simply awesome compared to mechanical drives. Limited space means you have to do a better job of managing your storage space but its well worth it imo.


Limited Write Speed?
By ImSpartacus on 12/2/2009 8:11:20 AM , Rating: 2
When I purchase an SSD, it won't be for the write speeds. It's be for the random read speeds that really give you that "pop" feeling.

But right now I'm still clugging along with a 5400 rpm 160GB drive...




RE: Limited Write Speed?
By bennyg on 12/2/2009 8:34:03 AM , Rating: 2
same

Hope the G2 X25M 80Gb coming ... well... whenever... in my new laptop already has this firmware, 0.4Mb/sec random read/write is better than 0Mb/sec because it won't boot at all.


RE: Limited Write Speed?
By chizow on 12/2/2009 10:47:37 AM , Rating: 2
Ya knocking Intel's SSDs for lower write speeds is a bit misleading, as its sequential writes are significantly lower than the competition but at the same time, its random read/writes are far superior to the competition and much more important in day to day activities and especially as an OS drive.

Don't get me wrong, sequential writes are still nice, especially when you're copying from another SSD or HDDs in RAID 0, they're just not as important as random read/writes when it comes to tangible performance or system responsiveness, ie. "snappyness".


RE: Limited Write Speed?
By invidious on 12/2/09, Rating: -1
RE: Limited Write Speed?
By omnicronx on 12/2/2009 11:04:54 AM , Rating: 4
quote:
Realistically there is little difference in terms of "pop" between an SSD and a good and well maintained HDD.

0.1MS vs 10MS on a conventional 7200RPM HDD, a bit lower on a high priced high RPM drive, but nowhere near 0.1MS . I assure you there is a BIG difference, heck if you want what seems to be an instant hardware upgrade, an SSD is by far the best solution.

The HD has been the bottleneck for years, you can have the fastest icore7 PC with 8gigs of ram and your conventional HDD will always be the bottleneck.


RE: Limited Write Speed?
By chizow on 12/2/2009 11:17:21 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Realistically there is little difference in terms of "pop" between an SSD and a good and well maintained HDD. I have always used a dedicated drive for OS/apps/games and made sure nto to clutter it and to set download folders to data drives.


Ya I can't really agree with that statement at all, and while you've said you're basing those comments on your own experiences with SSDs, that opinion seems to contradict the overwhelming feedback from SSD users.

Are you using your SSD as a OS/app drive? I actually started using my SSD originally as a game drive and was somewhat underwhelmed with the results, but once I switched it to my Vista (and now Win7) boot drive there's really no going back to HDDs for me.

I did have to move some of my more storage-intensive User folders, like Downloads/Demos and music, but I keep my pictures/photos on the SSD as they're relatively small compared to other media and benefit tremendously from the SSDs far superior random access and read speeds.

I have thousands of photos in my main pictures folder with numerous other sub-folders and their previews pop-up instantly, with new previews showing as fast as I can scroll. There's no way you're getting that end-user experience with a HDD no matter how well you organize or maintain.

Its a similar experience for everything that actually resides on the SSD, obviously once you go off the SSD and back to the sluggishness of the HDDs, you lose said performance benefits.


RE: Limited Write Speed?
By Reclaimer77 on 12/2/2009 12:21:10 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Realistically there is little difference in terms of "pop" between an SSD and a good and well maintained HDD.


I suggest you stop posting FUD.


RE: Limited Write Speed?
By Spivonious on 12/2/2009 12:40:22 PM , Rating: 3
Interesting to read your experiences.

My hypothesis here is that Windows Vista/7 SuperFetch technology is at work. If your most frequently used applications and files are already in memory, then you wouldn't notice a change in disk access time.


RE: Limited Write Speed?
By Reclaimer77 on 12/2/2009 12:07:45 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah that last paragraph was just stupid, misleading, and had nothing to do with the firmware story. Intel SSD's have NO deficits period. Also he said "write" speeds, but it's really sequential writes, which don't even matter. Their random write speed, what matters the most, is off the charts.


Any way to get TRIM support on Intel G1?
By trajan on 12/2/2009 12:08:43 PM , Rating: 2
Just curious.. I have an 80GM G1. I'd really like to go up to 160GB and the cheaper way would be to get another 80GB and RAID, but without TRIM maybe its worth sucking it up and getting a G2 160, and trying to sell the 80GB G1..




RE: Any way to get TRIM support on Intel G1?
By chizow on 12/2/2009 1:17:16 PM , Rating: 2
I just recently went through this decision-making process and instead of getting the 2nd 80gb drive for RAID 0, I decided instead to get a 160gb g2 and try and sell the 80gb g1 ASAP to recoup the cost difference.

A 2nd 80gb would allow you to RAID0 the drives for a total of 160gb for a short-term boost in performance, but a single 160gb offers the potential for TRIM support and a more portable/useful capacity going forward in either single or RAID0 configurations down the road. I'll probably add a 2nd 160gb down the road when they're cheaper and a 320gb game array sounds a lot more appealing to me than a 160gb game array with 2x80gb drives.

Basically it came down to 80gb just not being enough capacity, so while getting a 2nd would essentially double capacity and performance now it'd still leave me with 2 really small drives in the future. I already have a few other HDDs on my main PC and don't like being so restricted when it comes to available SATA ports.


RE: Any way to get TRIM support on Intel G1?
By trajan on 12/2/2009 1:54:43 PM , Rating: 2
Thanks for the tip!! I have plenty of CPU space/SATA slots, but TRIM is really appealing.

If you happen to check back on this thread, I'd be grateful for any tips on how you sold / are planning to sell your 80GB G1!


By chizow on 12/2/2009 3:21:21 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah TRIM was a big factor for me too, I'd much rather have the drive serviced automatically or with a simple press of a button using the manual toolbox rather than having to fuss with a secure erase using some unofficial 3rd party workaround in order to restore performance.

I'll most likely try and unload the G1 on Ebay, even though seller and Paypal fees will reduce the amount recouped the difference will probably be smaller than the hassle of trying to unload it on a more tech savvy marketplace where buyers may expect a greater discount being cogniscent of the difference between G1 and G2 drives.

Timing of course is key while the G2 drives still carry hefty premiums due to low supply and price gouging and the G2 drives are still commanding relatively high prices. If you're looking for a good deal on a 160GB, CCity with Bing Cash Back @12-13% and $10 off $100 had them for $412-$422 shipped earlier today, they've since raised the prices but its worth keeping an eye on it, good luck! Not as good as the Newegg Cyber Monday and Nov.18th deals but still very good relative to everywhere else.


X25-M Gen2 80gig, is it worth it?
By xposebrant on 12/2/2009 12:18:00 PM , Rating: 2
I just got the drive 2 days ago, installed Win7, then upgraded to this latest firmware late last night.

Many people might say 80gig isn't big enough. Well, it is if you use your drive for ONLY app installs and games. Nothing else.

As far as performance, its been great. Photoshop opens at least 5x as fast, as does IE, Google Chrome, and Firefox. Basically, everything you do is noticeably faster. Though I personally thought it would be even faster since I am coming from a WD 1tb black drive, and not a raptor.

Here is a comparison using HDTune with the new firmware update compared to the previous version: http://img522.yfrog.com/img522/4156/ssdcomparison....




By xposebrant on 12/2/2009 12:23:18 PM , Rating: 2
Oh, and one last thing. I used to use a 4gig thumb stick for readyboost on my old HD. Well, I tried to do the same thing with the SSD in, and it said I couldn't because there would be no benefit from doing so. ;)


By HotFoot on 12/3/2009 12:09:50 AM , Rating: 2
80 GB is really the minimum I've been recommending to my friends, since that's the size I got. I have on it Win 7 and a small collection of applications - what I'd consider pretty typical for a home computer. Documents, media and temp files go to the HDD.

I think it's just about a perfect fit as it is, but I can't help the feeling that perhaps the glove fits too well. As it is, the drive is a little over half full. I want a good portion of it empty space to make sure it lasts a good long time - optimising the wear-levelling. I'd rather not have the thought in the back of my mind when I go to install something new. A few extra dollars for the 128 GB or 160 GB capacity probably would have been well spent.

Then again, I tell myself even if I wear this drive out faster than I'd like, by the time it has signs of aging something so much nicer will be available, and probably even more affordable.


By somedude1234 on 12/4/2009 9:48:48 AM , Rating: 2
In my experience, absolutely yes. I upgraded the 7.2K, 80GB HDD in my laptop to the 80GB intel G2, and I couldn't be happier. It truly is like getting a whole new computer.

For one example: I get a TON of email, and I'm always changing the "sort by" on my Outlook inbox from "date" to "from". What used to take ages is now instantaneous. Same goes for doing "advanced search" in Outlook. A search through 12K email messages that used to take several minutes now completes in seconds.

80GB is plenty enough for the OS and applications on my laptop (no games here, just lots of work). I use external drives and network storage for media files and infrequently accessed information, and I still have over 30GB free on the SSD. This is enough space to toss a load of music and movies onto the laptop when I travel. Failing that, there are always travel-friendly external 2.5" drives available.

Do I wish I had the 160GB G2? Sure, but it was a lot easier for me to justify spending $250 than $500.


By chizow on 12/2/2009 10:42:14 AM , Rating: 2
I guess we're just used to Intel's sterling reputation when it comes to support for their CPUs and chipsets, but their SSD launch has been anything but stellar.

Here's a non-comprehensive list of missteps and problems surrounding Intel's SSD ventures so far that come to mind:

quote:
1. High prices, low availability and widespread gouging. It took cuts from OCZ before Intel was willing to cut their prices but it seems both are willing to revert to previous pricepoints due to low supply and lack of competition outside of the superior Intel and Indilinx controller drives. There have been some good recent deals, but non "sale" or "promo" prices are still outrageous and near-MSRP prices are perpetually OOS.

2. Two firmware problems for Intel's G2 drives and no TRIM support for G1. Intel initially delayed the 34nm G2 launch due to a potential firmware PW bricking issue for about a month. They saw more problems with the much publicized SSD bricking issues with their TRIM update. There's also no indication for G1 support of TRIM without giving any reason or explanation.

3. Still no TRIM support for their own drivers. If you use their RAID/AHCI specific drivers with Intel Matrix Storage Manager or Intel Rapid Storage Technology or run the ICH10R controller in RAID mode, you won't get TRIM regardless of this firmware update. You have to use Microsoft's generic AHCI driver which has reduced performance compared to Intel's storage drivers. You also won't get TRIM on a non-RAIDed SSD if you have some other drives on the controller in a RAID array.

4. No updated SSD Toolbox. Requirement to manually TRIM drives that are using Intel's drivers, RAIDed drives, or single drives on a controller running RAIDed drives.


That said I've been using a G1 80GB for the last 8 months or so and have a 160GB on the way to replace it. Its certainly fast and everything its hyped up to be but like anything else, its easy to take those performance gains for granted and forget how dramatic those improvements were to the point I'm not really sure the price to performance ratio is really worth it.

Why am I upgrading from 80GB to 160GB so soon? Trim Support for starters, but 80GB is clearly showing its limitations as a boot drive even after moving most of my User documents/folders off to another drive. With shadow copies/restore points, I only have room for 1-2 games using mklink junctions.

Intel really needs to step it up with their software/driver support if they want to keep charging these prices, or drop prices if they want to keep support as it is. Their main competitor in this arena, OCZ, isn't exactly known for its stellar support in other hardware areas but apparently they're really on top of things when it comes to their SSDs.




Incorrect Headline
By kellehair on 12/2/09, Rating: 0
“And I don't know why [Apple is] acting like it’s superior. I don't even get it. What are they trying to say?” -- Bill Gates on the Mac ads

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